Yard Saling, as described by Papa on Facebook...

Friday night: 
Family is prepped and ready to slaughter the Mascoutah Community Yard Sales tomorrow. We're breaking up into three commando units, complete with armaments, communications, and acquisition experts. Vehicles are fueled, car-seats are placed, and assignments made. Our objectives are known to all, and we will cross-reference our findings to specify our objective targets. We shall be victorious!

Saturday afternoon: 
Commando Unit Alpha, led by Captain Sylvia with Lt. Gloria, departed early in the most-terrain vehicle to scout the objectives and make advance guerilla raids at various garage sales. Command Unit Bravo, led by General Moustache (with 1st Lt. Knut, 2nd Lt. Cecily, Sgt. Thor, and Private Bjorn), departed at T-minus 15 to obtain additional funds from the bank before the main assault. Commando Unit Charlie, led by Supreme Commander Nancy, guarded the rear supply base until Captains Leif and Rosemary finished their much needed slumber after a night of watchfulness on night guard. Charlie Unit left at T-plus 2 hours for mop-up operations on the remaining yard sales that survived the first two assaults.

A thorough victory has been declared, and appropriate celebrations are in progress with a lunch of mac-n-cheese with sliced hot-dogs.

News

What have we been up to in 2013 thus far?

Bright Lights...

His Lighthouse...

FLL...

Lyceum...

Church...

(In choir rehearsal, as Mom is accompanying... Papa is directing; the choir is waiting for his signal to come in. He's telling a stupid joke.)
Mom: (playing last measure over and over) How long are you going to beat??
Papa: I don't know; I'm telling something stupid!

Leify sleeping through the Wednesday night Lenten service

Time with friends...

Jael: You are such a literalist! You've been around Sylvia too long.
Sophi: ...we love you, Sylvia!
Kira: Jael loves you, too!
Abi: Can you tell? 

Fun at home...

Sewing...

Reading...

Music...

Interesting dinner conversations...

Mom: You HAD a brain.
Papa: What, you mean I don't anymore?
Mom: No; now you have two brains: your internal brain and your external brain.
Cecily: What, his moustache?
Mom: No, his iPhone.

School...

Sylvia: Thor, please use your brains. I know you have them and they're very good.
Thor: Actually, I only have one, and I left it up in my room. And it's very small.
Knut: I left mine at the last FLL competition.
(I found out several days later that they were talking about little toy rubber brains.)

Gloria: Where's my pencil?
Mom: We need to weld it to a chain around your neck so you don't lose it.
Sylvia: Good idea... except that if you try to weld a pencil, it will die.

Mom: Knut, do you want to participate in the 8th grade graduation?
Knut: ...I thought I was in 7th grade.

Knut: Haven't you ever heard the story of how the Penguins launched Penguin Books? 

Mom: When YOU have to write your essay about how life experience is helpful, you can write about...
Knut: TOAST!!!
Mom: ...whatever. *sighs*

Mom: Okay; as long as what you're doing is brainless.

Mom: Wow... um... I'm glad I asked this question!
Knut: I'm brilliant.
Mom: No, that was totally wrong!
Knut: Glad you liked my joke! Now do you wanna hear the real answer?

Knut: The first full-length American movie was Birth of a Toaster. (It was "Birth of a Nation")

Mom: Don't leave yet! You still need to listen to this book.
Knut: Mom, since I can multitask... *picks up comic book*
Mom: NOT Calvin and Hobbes. 

Knut: Nooo!!! Think, think, think, think, think, Vern!
Sylvia: *starts laughing*
Knut: WHAT!?
Sylvia: Other than the fact that you're telling VERN to think when YOU'RE taking a French test?
Knut: But he can tell me the answer!
Sylvia: That would be cheating.
Mom: At least when homeschoolers cheat it's only because their imaginary friend helps them!
Knut: But Vern's not imaginary.
Sylvia: That's for sure!

Sylvia: Stop sitting around doing nothing! Or... I'll start asking you random questions.
Cecily: *jumps up and runs away* 

Planning...

Knut: We'll head out from here...
Sylvia: Well, where else would we head out from?
Knut: Mars. Anyway, then we'll...

Disc golf...

Randomness...

Cecily: There's a loose baby lying around! 

Thor: C'mon, Knut; what are you doing?
Knut: I'm taking over the world; just give me a second!
Thor: Hurry up!

Cecily: I'm broke. No, wait, I'm not broke! I found 75 cents!
Mom: Where'd you find it? In my purse?

*insert interesting post title here*

Lots of things that have been happening lately: (note: after this post, don't expect another for at least a week; it's going to be reeeallly crazy...)

We actually watched the last game of the World Series! First time for everyone except Papa. :) We don't have TV, so we got it streamed from the Internet...

It was actually really fun! We celebrated the Cardinals' victory with cookies. ;)

Knut took the camera to Lyceum last week and got some crazy pictures between classes and during Drama. Normally he wouldn't be allowed to take pictures during Drama, but they were rehearsing "the chase scene" of his play for the entire hour-and-a-half class period, and Knut (horrors!) is not involved in "the chase scene"! It might be a good idea to not post those pictures except with specific consent from the people in them. ;)

This is Vern. He is a glorp.

STAY AWAY FROM VERN.

That is all you need to know.

There is an annual free Halloween parade/costume contest in our town that we always enter. Ever since we first entered, four years ago, there has always been a Peterson in a prizewinning entry. This year we carried on that tradition...

Thor and the Claytons dressed up as pirates and put together a pirate ship out of big pieces of cardboard, two red wagons, and some black cloth for a sail. Their entry was amazing... and consequently they won FIRST PLACE in the "groups of 2 or more" division!!

Other entries...

Gloria dressed up as a butterfly

Knut and I dressed up as Ninjas. Both of these pictures are of Knut since I was the one behind the camera. ;)

Papa dressed as a cowboy and entered only after tremendous urging. :) Cecily and Rosemary entered as English Princesses, but sadly I don't have a picture of their lovely costumes. :(

That evening we were planning to go to a concert, but we were mistaken about the time. After some friends called us to let us know that THEY were running late we found out our mistake... and so for about five minutes were rushing around FRANTICALLY (and I mean REALLY FRANTICALLY) trying to clean up, get everyone out of costumes and into regular clothes, and get in the car and buckled up. Unfortunately we forgot about makeup... and so Thor went to the concert wearing eyeshadow (at least his scars and beard got washed off!) and Gloria went to the concert with lipstick, blusher, eyeshadow, light eyeliner, and face powder. :)

Speaking of makeup, I found out before the parade that it IS possible to apply mascara with your mouth closed. I don't wear any makeup, so I had always heard (and believed) that it was not possible... but when I put it on as part of my costume, I stubbornly kept my mouth shut. :) Random fact for you.

Stuff that is going on this month and next:

Peterson Family Singers is actually starting up again!! We have a concert scheduled for this Monday, so we've been rehearsing whenever we can to get ready.

Knut's First Lego League group has their competition in a couple weeks, so we hardly see Knut anymore! He's at FLL meetings almost all day on Tuesdays and after Lyceum on Fridays, as well as doing research and work at home for their project. Mom and I got to watch their skit/presentation a few days ago and it was really good! The team has definitely improved since last year.

Lyceum ends in a few weeks, and on the last day of Lyceum the older choir will be singing at the Lebanon homecoming. Also, the SCCCHE Christmas concert, at which both choirs will be singing, is December first!  Mom informed me yesterday that I will be accompanying one or two of the younger choir's pieces. (Yikes! :O) Peterson Family Singers will be doing a piece or two at the concert as well.

The Lyceum Drama performance is sometime in late-ish November... I can't remember exactly when; I think it's a week after Knut's FLL competition. So, that means that soon we'll be down to the wire trying to get our blocking taken care of. There are three plays this year; Knut and I are in different plays. Knut's play is having lots of trouble with blocking ("the chase scene" ;D) and my play has some very difficult period costumes that we're making without much in the way of patterns. I'm not sure about the other play, but I'm sure they're having their difficulties too! :P However, I'm sure the performance will be wonderful... with Ms. Jo (the wonderfully amazing director) it always is!

Bright Lights is still going, and so Cecily and I have meetings pretty much every other week. I also have a leaders meeting once a month, and do some emailing with my small group co-leaders to get agendas/accountability partners/etc. figured out. ;)

School... is my life right now. Other than Bright Lights, Lyceum, Drama, music, reading, working, the computer, and sewing, of course. ;) Cecily, Thor, and Gloria usually finish by lunchtime unless they're not focusing, so school doesn't take up too much of their day. Knut's schoolwork is beginning to take longer (and he's stopped teasing me about how long my school takes... I wonder why??), but he still usually manages to finish fairly soon after lunch. His FLL homework takes up a bunch of his time, though.

Cecily and I have been working at a public school (after school ends) almost every week for the past couple months. One of the teachers goes to our church, and she often has us help out when her class is finished grading students' work, cleaning off bulletin boards, making copies, cutting things out for projects, etc. It's interesting to work there because we get to see the kinds of things they're learning and the kinds of resources they have access to. I must admit that the resources (huge copy machines... smartboards... lots and lots of construction paper... PENCILS WITHOUT ERASERS CHEWED OFF BY THE BABY!!!) wouldn't be unwelcome to us (although we may not be able to fit the copy machines in the house anywhere :P), but then, lack of this kind of resource sparks such creativity (not to mention frugality) that maybe it's actually better to not have them. We could use more "whole" pencils, though... but that dream will never be fulfilled until we no longer have anyone in the house under the age of 3. And I'd rather have the babies. ;)

I have a sewing job for Grandma Joni that I need to have finished and shipped before December 1st. She wants 12 aprons to give to her friends for Christmas, and 7 of them she needs before December. So I guess only 7 of them need to be finished and shipped before December 1st, but I'm going to attempt to ship them all together. Let's see if that works... ;)

The monthly SCCCHE meeting is next Thursday, and all of us will be attending.

Mom and I are coordinating a farewell party for a wonderful family in the homeschool group who will be moving away this month! :( We're not sure yet when it will be.

Church: Choir rehearsal is Wednesday nights for Papa, Mom, and me, and then of course we all go to the  service on Sunday mornings.

Anything else? Um... I'm sure I'm forgetting something... but I'm ready to stop and I'm sure you're either tired of reading or you've just skimmed over most of the post. :) I'll not prolong your agony any longer. Hopefully you are now sufficiently convinced that we are busy and are willing to accept that as my excuse for probably not posting too often in the next few week, neglecting the Daily Family Insanity, and then not giving my lovely repertoire of excuses when I start posting "regularly" again. :)

My Memories projects

 

 

I've been having fun... :D

My Memories Software- enter the giveaway! :)

Building the Porch

It's been put off for years, but Papa is finally getting around to building the back porch! We decided to skip our vacation to Montana this year so that he could get it done. It's looking good! At the moment it's just a 'deck'; it will be a screened porch but the roof is nonexistent right now. :)

It went from this...

To this...

To this...

To this...

To this...

To this.

School/Projects

Thor was slow with his math this morning, so Circle Time was a little bit late.



Knut took advantage of his extra time by reading.



Cecily did, too.



So did Gloria

And Bjorn

 

and Little Rosemary, too!

  

I've been trying for several days to upload videos from my camera to this blog, but I haven't been having any success. (That's partially why I haven't been posting lately.) When Papa has some free time, I'll ask him to help me and see what the problem is.
Speaking of Papa, here are some pictures of things he's done for Mom and me the past couple days:

Rosemary kept climbing up the ladder to my office, so Papa nailed a cover onto the ladder!

(sorry for the bad photo quality)

It's easy to get up by climbing the ladder to my bunk and then stepping onto the ladder to my office, but Rosemary isn't able to climb up to my bunk (yet). When I had moved the ladder so that Rosemary couldn't get at the front of it, she started to try and climb up the back of the ladder, so Papa put a cover on the back as well. :)

Mom wanted to crochet a bathmat, but she needed to do it double-stranded. Here is what Papa fixed up:

Amazing, isn't it!